Basically, there are children born who are raised in the incorrect gender – because their sex is unknown to them and their families. Either way, I think the issues you are talking about are about personal freedom…and policies to encourage people the right to follow their own path do not only apply to smoking or any other non-dichotomous ‘choice.’ A birth certificate is only as useful as it apply’s to an individual. If an individual no longer has a penis and no longer acts according to their gender then it should be changed …

No identifier shows an individuals “current development” but that seems obvious and aside from the purpose of recording an identifier(eg: my brown eyes don’t reveal very much info. re. my character, self-view, etc., but does help define the physical me).

No, I think you miss my point, I think. Consider the “murder mystery” scenario (and crime in general), in which no DNA is collected but the victim’s DNA; then consider an eye-witness or even merely a security camera that captures a “woman” leaving the scene of the crime. If that woman was born a boy, chances are good that any database searches utilized in the investigation will miss the real culprit, since only XX’s will show up. Or consider the reverse, in which male DNA is collected at the scene of the crime; how likely are investigators to miss scrutinizing the full-breasted, apparently female babe during investigations? But the real point is simply that having “boy” or “girl” listed on the birth certificate, as if these designations always tell us something important about a person’s current development, social milieu, activities, and so forth, may be relatively useless.

Or would you argue that having every person’s entire (and unique) genome listed on future birth certificates, when such becomes feasible, is the way to go?

Curtis,
You miss the point, I think, that the birth certificate sexual identification is based upon an unchanging genotype, not phenotype. This genotype is a basic and unchanging “type”, a useful and practical identifier. IMHO for the state to change such a document is willful pandering and/or madness.

Most of the gay men I know don’t go around thinking “I’m gay, I’m gay, I’m gay” any more than women go around thinking “I’m a woman”. We’re all just s likely to identify ourselves by our profession or metier, by being a parent, if we are one, by our nationality, by our experiences, by many things.

Your brown hair analogy doesn’t work. You could shave your head daily, but your chromosomes will state that you have brown hair.

This European Court or Court of Human Rights or whichever one of the new, faceless EU entities devised by the nomenklatura this one is, is wrong to join in the pretence of transgenderism. It’s a fantasy. If some people want to pretend they are really a member of the opposite sex,that is their right. But they cannot force the rest of us, legally, to go along with the lie. If a man wants to take hormones and get himself cut about to look like a facismile of a woman, that again is his business. It is not the business of the state to support his fantasy.

This legalising of a lie was the work of one Cherie Blair, a dangerous Trotskyite. She makes Hillary Clinton look like Barry Goldwater.

Your final paragraph suggests that you have a very fragile grasp of the law.

The entire “queer ethic” has actually transcended even those who are meant to be labeled under LGBT/GLBT, while many who are supposed to be so labeled do not in fact subscribe to a “queer ethic.” How perverted is that, huh?

In any case…Your entire argument about DNA is bullshit. My genes also determine that I should have long hair, but I keep it close-cut in the military style. Furthermore, what is “boy” and what is “girl”, if such designations are merely code for XX or XY, is hardly important for understanding much about a person. Genetic variation within races, within XX and XY groupings, and within Blond and Brunette groupings ensure that individuals themselves are quite distinct from others within those groups, or quite different. Whatever authoritative role a birth certificate plays in labeling one a Boy or a Girl seems pretty irrelevant given the various emergences of phenotypes which occur within those groupings. At the same time, spending so much capital to alter a birth certificate — indeed, to institutionalize the ability to alter them — seems like a big waste of capital.

The fact that you think of this issue in terms of “lies” suggests to me that you’ll have great difficult adapting to the future. I do not believe you’ll be able to force the future to adapt to your vision.

Is it too much to ask that I could also change my birth certificate name from a male name to female name?

Americans do not appreciate the Soviet nature of the EU and how dangerous it is to the world. Already, the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy, a boondoggle for the French farming industry) keeps African producers out of the market of some 400m people. What this means is that African growers have no chance at a rich 400m person market in an affluent area of the world. It means that African entrepreneurs and African producers do not have a chance to better themselves and create wealth by trying their hand with the EU.

This is outrageous, but so what?

Ong, EK, Glantz, SA. Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on Cancer’s second-hand smoke study. Lancet. 2000 Apr 8;355(9211):1253-9

(Also something to consider: Michael Crichton is certainly no expert in this area. I have no idea how he forms his opinions.)

Also, even in situations where x does in reality cause y, if you do 100 studies examining the relationship between x and y there will still likely be a few where it looks like x might not cause y. But when the overwhelming majority of rigorous studies shows a relationship, we have scientific evidence for x causing y. And this is what we have with passive smoking causing heart disease and lung cancer. Again, I really recommend the Surgeon General’s report that I cited above. It’s an extremely exhaustive account of the research and evidence. Published during a Republican administration no less!

I have no problem with conservatives or liberals acknowledging science but then deciding that other concerns such as personal freedoms or shared values are more important that the scientific evidence when deciding on policy. For instance, I acknowledge that active smoking causes cancer, however I would not be in favor of a policy outlawing all smoking. I don’t need to deny the science to have this position, I acknowledge it but I value personal freedom more in this particular case. The thing that I have a major issue with is when people deny scientific evidence. There’s no need. We’ve never made policy decisions in this country solely on the basis of scientific evidence and we shouldn’t. That’s okay, everyone.

“The world’s leading health organization (WHO) has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect.” From the UK Telegraph

The following quote is from a speech by Michael Crichton, MD and author, at CalTech:

“In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had “committed to a conclusion before research had begun”, and had “disregarded information and made findings on selective information.” The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: “We stand by our science….there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of health problems.” Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.

Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.

As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don’t want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you’ll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we’ve given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We’ve told them that cheating is the way to succeed.”

This is what Val is talking about. The science is not “settled” on this issue. Therefore, political decisions based on banning second hand smoke are just that, political decisions. These kinds of manipulations of science for political purposes usually come from the left side of the political spectrum, to promote anti-business, anti-capitalist ideology. It’s not superstition, it is the politicization of science.

My concern is the obscenity of an EU court and EU bureaucrats agreeing to change people’s birth certificates to suit the tastes of adults with a gripe. The government has knowingly colluded in a lie and destroyed the legal integrity of the birth certificate. One more point for Big Brother – who was probably Big Sister before she realised she was really a guy born into “the wrong body”.

Have I got a Surgeon General’s Report for you!
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/sgr_2006/index.htm

What alarms me is the 1984-esque Big Lie that has been hammered into the legislature – although the EU nomenklatura say it’s not really a legislature – of 400m people. The integrity of the birth certificate is now shredded to suit the aims of left.

Marc, could you stop taking the pills and lose your will to continue to post on this thread?

It’s not about you.

So, again: it’s one thing to say that children, who don’t know any better, are being put on drugs unnecessarily. But how do you explain away the millions of adults like me who have the disorder and require the medicine to function? If ADD doesn’t exist, why do I need dextroamphetamine to concentrate sufficiently to hold down a job and balance my budget?

He has addressed your points far better than I would be able to. Like passive smoking and “man made climate change” (formerly known, and discredited, as “global warming”) and “sex change” operations, there is a vast industry promoting, and feeding off, these issues.

I am not interested,Ralf, in deflecting the point of this argument, which is that the faceless, monolithic EUSSR government is colluding with the left in a provable scientific lie. DNA cannot be altered. If one is born a female, no amount of hormones and silicone jiggery-pokery can make you into a man, because your DNA has marked you with the female chromosome. That an entity governed by unnamed bureaucrats and lawyers of the ilk of Cherie Blair should collude in this lie is very frightening indeed and should serve as a warning to the peoples unfortunate enough to be living under its faceless governance.

They knew it was a lie, and they wrote it into law.

Perhaps you could explain to me why it is that I am unable to focus on things regardless of interest or intention unless I take my prescribed dose of dextroamphetamine (10mg), at which point I am able to focus without – surprise surprise – becoming a zombie slave to the liberals, or whatever it is you believe happens to people who undergo treatment for ADD.

Also, you might want to meditate on the fact that if I weren’t on dexedrine right now, chances are I wouldn’t have been able to read your blog entry all the way through. You should give thanks for the pharmaceutical companies for increasing your readership. :-)

To be fair, I do find it both highly probable and mroally repugnant that children are being misdiagnosed with ADD/ADHD and put on medication they don’t need because of the Nanny State’s impulse to control. But the disorder – which is by no means confined to children – is certainly real, regardless of the sins of school administrators.